- Salford City Council Children’s Services rated overall effectiveness as ‘Good’ by OFSTED
- Service rated as ‘Outstanding’ for its work with care leavers and its leadership of children’s services
- This result highlights improvements across the service, following previous rating of ‘Good’ in all areas from 2018 inspection
- Rating follows ‘Good’ inspections of all council’s children’s homes in the last two years
Salford City Council’s Children’s Services has been rated overall as ‘Good’, with ‘Outstanding’ in 50% of the judgement areas. Salford was graded ‘Outstanding’ in ‘The experiences and progress of care leavers’ and ‘The impact of leaders on social care practice with children and families’ in the latest Inspection of a Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) by OFSTED.
OFSTED, the government body charged with inspecting services providing education and that care for children and young people visited the council for the five-day long inspection as part of the ILACS programme.
The report which has been published today, 12 January, cites a range of positive outcomes for the council service.
Workers and managers in the care leaver service were recognised as ‘strong advocates for their young people’ providing support that is ‘individually tailored’ whilst social workers were described as ‘skilled and resourceful’. The support provided, leads to ‘trusting and enduring relationships that ensure that care leavers are guided through key transition points in their lives’ a process that is seen as being ‘greatly valued by care leavers.’ Inspectors reported the ‘persistence and determination shown across the service to remain in touch with care leavers in a meaningful way.’
Inspectors also praised the multi-agency partnership in Salford, labelling it ‘strong and effective’. They noted that this approach led to delivering ‘the best services and outcomes for children, which leads to effective joint working and appropriate challenge to further improve services.’
Workforce strength across the service is key, with OFSTED highlighting ‘A strong senior leadership team ensures that there is a relentless focus on further improvement, with children at the centre of service delivery’ as the foundation of the successful rating. Councillors, senior leaders, managers and officers were all involved in the inspection and praise from OFSTED was targeted at all levels of the organisation. The service is led by Cabinet Member Cllr Jim Cammell, with support from Councillor Teresa Pepper and Executive Director of Children’s Services Melissa Caslake who led the team through the inspection.
Salford’s Children’s Services team have developed a secure workforce, through a pay and grading review which resulted in improved terms and conditions for social workers and by benefitting from the Greater Manchester Pledge. This shared commitment across the city region seeks to create stability across the workforce in children’s social care and has helped the city council create a strong staff group in Salford.
Representatives from all levels of the organisation were praised in the final report, with inspectors highlighting that ‘Corporate and political leaders listen carefully to children, care leavers and staff and use this learning to inform strategic planning and financial investment. Robust quality assurance and governance arrangements are well established, and this means that leaders and managers know themselves well, are clearly sighted on the key areas for development, and usually take prompt action to address any shortfalls in practice.’
This latest rating highlights a clear and significant improvement in the services delivered by the council team, following the 2018 inspection where the service was rated ‘Good’ in all four judgement areas.
Salford City Mayor Paul Dennett said: “Supporting children and young people in our city is one of our key priorities and always will be. We are committed to ensuring that children and young people are safe, supported and have the best possible start in life. The overall judgements from OFSTED across all categories and the recognition of our outstanding work to support care leavers, demonstrate excellent leadership and social work practice and the recognition of the city's whole-system approach to delivering children services and working with our partners in the city is truly fantastic!
The outcomes are also a real testament to the sterling work of the city council's officers, our foster carers, children and young people themselves, our partners and the leadership shown by my Cabinet Lead Member Councillor Jim Cammell, Executive Support Member Councillor Teresa Pepper and our Director of Children's Services Melissa Caslake and her senior leadership team.
However, there is no room for complacency as the pressures facing our residents, families, children and young people following 13 years of central government-imposed austerity, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis are deeply concerning. We are living in unprecedented times, residents, families and indeed our children and young people are facing more and more pressures, combined with a period of grossly inadequate funding for councils to support them.
We will continue to fight for more funding support to enable us to continue to support our residents, children, young people and families across the city and this work has already started.”
Councillor Jim Cammell, Lead Member for Children’s and Young People’s Services added: “We have a fantastic team here and this report shows that Salford is a great place to be a social worker and our foster carers feel well supported. We have created a positive working environment across the service, where our staff are valued, nurtured, supported, and developed and young people are benefiting from this approach. But we know this report is not the end, our work isn’t complete and there will always be fresh challenges to face and ways to improve so that children and young people can thrive in Salford.”
Tom Stannard, Chief Executive from Salford City Council said: “I’m really proud that our Children’s Services team has received this ‘Good’ rating with ‘Outstanding’ qualities and I’m proud of the work our staff do on a daily basis to support children and young people and their families. This report is testament to our workforce, our children’s department being a great place to work, and to our pioneering work with care leavers. OFSTED inspections are tough, but necessary to not only ensure we are delivering quality services, but to also benchmark our work against other councils.”
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- Date published
- Friday 12 January 2024